Bolga Residents Chase Mahama Over Unfulfilled Promises

The leadership of Coalition of Civil Society Organizations/Pressure Groups operating in the Upper East Region, says President Mahama’s visit to the region was very likely to be unbeneficial as far as the ordinary person’s socio-economic development is concerned.

This concern, according to the group, stems from the fact that the president was deliberately shielded from hearing and seeing the reality on the ground.

The Coalition believes that the Regional Coordinating Council (RCC), for reasons best known to it, did everything possible to ensure that President Mahama did not come face-to-face with the true state of affairs in the region and the Bolgatanga municipality in particular. It noted that the RCC ensured that the president saw only the few good things and relished the praises rained on him.

The Coalition on Monday made a request to meet the president when he arrived in the region on Thursday, November 5, but the request was instantly turned down, probably to ensure that it did not get the opportunity to open the ‘can of worms’ before him (president).

Coalition members say they had wanted to meet him over the many promises he had made to the people of the region that were yet to be fulfilled. They also wanted to hear his response to the petition they had sent to him through the RCC, on the poor state of the roads in the Bolgatanga municipality and the region as a whole.

Members said they again wanted to find out how far President Mahama’s government had gone with the search for investors to revamp the Pwalugu Tomato Factory and other factories in the region which he, during the campaign in 2012, promised to revamp, if the people voted him into office.

A member of the Coalition and Public Relations Officer of BONABOTO, Stanley Abupam, confirmed to DAILY GUIDE that their request to meet the president on behalf of the many people they represent was turned down by the Upper East Regional Minister, James Tiigah Zuugah. Coalition members were told to listen to GBC-URA on Thursday, November 5, and raise their issues during the phone-in segment of the radio programme with President Mahama addressing the residents.

Like other Coalition members, Stanley Abupam suspected that the regional minister and the RCC were hiding some development deficits from the president, for which reason they were bent on ensuring that civil society organizations did not meet the president.

‘We had very good issues to raise; the President’s response to them would have given us a mental picture of where our development obstructions are coming from. We complain about shoddy works on our roads and instead of them getting better, keep getting worse. Street and traffic lights don’t work even after several complaints, and once we hear the president is coming to the region, people rush to repair them. It’s unfortunate we were not allowed to meet the president,’ Stanley Abupam lamented.